Pitino's formula is an open book

Mike Nolan got canned the other day by the San Francisco 49ers, in midseason yet, the most embarrassing time for a coach to get the ax. Others likely will follow as bad records continue to get worse.

Proves again that ownership, in any sport, doesn't know exactly what it will get when it signs a coach. And neither does a coach when he signs. It can vary wildly. Tom Coughlin has taken the ride from near extinction to the crest of the mountain.

At the top, when he's done, he'll meet up with the likes of Don Shula, Bill Parcells, Bill Walsh, Jimmy Johnson, Bill Belichick.

So what made them so good?

Good players? Bright answer. But there had to be something else?

The baseball honor roll has such names as Joe McCarthy, Connie Mack, Joe Torre, Bobby Cox and someday maybe manager Joe Maddon, orchestrator of the Miracle of the Rays, who is well on his way as he leads his marvelous upstarts into the World Series starting Wednesday night.

Some gifted coaches do well, others don't. All of them obviously are well-versed in the basics, so why the difference?

Basketball's Red Auerbach, Pat Riley, Chuck Daly, Phil Jackson, Lenny Wilkens, Larry Brown, Bobby Knight, Red Holzman, among the elite, are or were different. They had to have something beyond basics going for them. Like what?

Rick Pitino, certainly one of the good ones, says he has the answer. In a word, motivation. He has put it in a book called "Rebound Rules: The Art of Success 2.0" (HarperCollins, $25.95), actually his fifth book on pretty much the same theme: how to win.

But this one is not written in X's and O's, the variable mechanics of the game, although he is known as an innovative mentor, who made devastating use of the 3-point shot in an earlier time when most other coaches were hesitant to follow. And he is a master on defense.

But Pitino is essentially a motivational teacher, who pursues success by drawing it out of his players. He is the personality antithesis of a Bobby Knight, although Knight did get it done his way.

Far more than basketball, Pitino aims his philosophy at business, sports and the better life. He offers advice and strategies for dealing with personal and professional situations. His own life contained tragedies he had to overcome and it probably influenced him to encourage others to do the same.

He is far from the "Do as I say, not as I do" type. He is a disciplinarian, hardest on himself.

Every day, Rick Pitino says, he faithfully writes down everything he eats for breakfast, lunch and dinner, even snacks. Then he records the calories, even his exercise of the day.

He also adds up the carbohydrates he consumes on a particular day, so that he can make a compensating adjustment the following day, if needed; lots of carbs on Tuesday, none on Wednesday, that sort of thing.

Ralph Waldo Emerson would have considered that excessive. He called special diets just a way to shift the chemicals around.

If nothing else, that makes Pitino different from the rest of us. I'm not bad myself in personal discipline, except that I have a problem or two, like I don't know how to count carbohydrates, although I probably will when the instructive e-mails arrive from readers.

The routine, Pitino says, keeps him fit and trim, so that he isn't hypocritical when he demands the same of the young men he teaches how to play basketball. It is a tribute that he is hard on himself. I've seen some pretty fat coaches in my time.

Anyway, you will recognize Pitino as one of the better all-time coaches in college basketball. His record of the moment is 521-191, compiled at Boston University, Providence College, Kentucky and Louisville, his current base. He is the only coach to have led three schools to the Final Four, including 1996 NCAA champion Kentucky.

He also has coached in the NBA, the Knicks and the Celtics, but it is better to judge him as a college coach. He became coach of a terrible Knicks team in 1987 and later took it to its first division title in nearly 20 years. But in 2001, he lost $23 million when he walked away from his Celtics contract, although he insists he did the right thing.

He therefore did not compose a Hall of Fame record, unless his college record is included.

Pitino and his wife Joanne have five children, including Richard, an assistant to his dad at Louisville. But they lost a sixth, age 6 months, to heart failure. (A foundation in his name has raised millions for children in need.)

Pitino also lost two brothers-in law, Billy Minardi, to 9/11, and Don Vogt, killed by a New York City cab. His book on how to handle such adversities hardly lacks authenticity.